Sunday, March 15, 2009

Today I am going to believe in the power of internet, in six degrees of separation and in the principle of attraction. Will it work? I don't know. The sceptical mind says no, of course not, but I hope, and cross my fingers.

In trying to find the Carl Sandburg quote in the last post, I found a poem which must be the earliest free verse I liked. It came from a now defunct newspaper called Junior Statesman but I don't know when this had appeared - the original cutting, if I had that has long since disappeared, but I had copied it in my notebooks. For years I have wanted to know more about the poet, about the paper, and whether it was possible to access their archives at all. And it just occurred to me that I can, of course, google. But all the same, I want to share it with you, in the hope that something else entirely wonderful may wash up on my shores...

And of course it is a lovely poem. Haven't you felt this way sometime?

As if a heart needed reason

There is a timeWhen the heartSeems to sing without reason(As if a heart needed reason to sing.)

Just becauseThe tide is coming in,Or becauseLittle pebblesWhisper to each otherWhen the salt of the seaWashes them clean...

...Because...It is morningOr eveningOr night;Or a flight of green parakeetsDecorates the festive air,Backed by a round ballOf fire.

And, to keep it short and sweet, just a little tidbit, (with hopes of featuring the entire site later, someday). String spin is a 'toy' produced by zefrank.com Its a site I am still exploring and will feature shortly, so more about it later. For now -

Just scribble something - anything, and watch the widget rotate it like a potter's wheel,

P.S. In case you have had the misfortune of already having seen this post, and wondering about why I would have Scribbler as the post topic, and as links, and then post pics of string spin, a thousand apologies! For once I picked up images and links I had stored instead of opening a site afresh and then carrying on, and of course I had to make such a big jumble of it. I have corrected all of it now, and here is theadvanced version of it too, in which you can control the colours and the spin variables!

Have fun, till next time!

P.P.S. While talking of lost magazines and papers, wouldn't I love to get my hands on an editorial by Dharamveer Bharati from the hindi magazine Dharmayug, which began (I don't recall the true words now but this is close enough) - Diya kya hai? Ek mutthi bhar dhool! Thode paani se mil kar, thodi aag se guzar kar ghor andhakar to lalkarta hai...

(What is a diya after all? Just a handful of dirt! Mixed with a bit of water, put through a bit of fire, and it is ready to take on deep darkness...)

10 comments:

:) beautiful poem.and I totally belive that when you've searched for something long, or kept it in your thoughts of and on, it makes its way to you. people, internet, the radio, fate: these are just the means.Hope you find the editorial too.

R&m, glad you liked these. With my child growing up, and our webtime decreasing, I want so much to share this - er, collection of mine :) And I am not that, ahem, old either! I don't have blogs featured as such but I of course talk about something which has been a starting point for a thought, an idea, something cool - at random.

Hi SwatiThanks for dropping by. Sorry about my over active spam filter. The poem speaks to my "Why I'm an appreciator" post. Again thanks, and the string thing will keep me going for hours. Not so sure if I should thank you for that.

Don, thank you for coming over. Don't worry about the spam filter - it is something with typepad and wordpress both. Initially I had no problem, but lately my hotmail address gets blocked, I think. Still trying to figure it out :)

As to the string thing, well there are more in the next post, hee hee.

Who am I?

What is this about?

Hello, new age internet baby! As times change, so do modes of instruction and entertainment, and the contents therein. Technology brings its own set of skills to master, even if minor ones. 'Hello, net baby' is a blog to showcase my collection of websites for young children. The title of each post will indicate how good I think the site is, on a scale of 1 to 5; the post itself is in two parts - some general chatter, in black, and the 'baby' part, in blue. A postscript section will always follow with strings of thought which are best handled separate from the main post. In some cases, it may even hold the main idea!

Feel free to disregard the extra chit chat and go straight to the section on websites. Your questions, suggestions and comments are welcome.